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Wednesday, 26 September 2007

Brokeback opera

It seems that Annie Proulx has given permission for an opera based on her story, Brokeback Mountain, about two gay cowboys. Fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Wuorinen will compose. Wuorinen (born 1938) studied with Stefan Wolpe and of his music the New York Times once said, Charles Wuorinen has taken the decrees of 12-tone music and made them sing.. Whilst he might not necessarily seem an obvious choice his opera, Haroun and the sea of stories, to a libretto by James Fenton, has had some success. Whether he can solve the problem of giving two cowboys something convincing to sing remains to be seen!

Quickening:

Songs by Robert Hugill to texts by English and Welsh poets now available from Amazon

four delicate, sensitive settings of Ivor Gurney, drawing performances of like quality. - it is Rosalind Ventris’s viola, weaving its way around and between the voice and William Vann’s piano, that is most beguilingGramphone magazine Jan 2018